


Gather Your Party

by queen_scribbles



Category: Pillars of Eternity
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-14
Updated: 2018-07-14
Packaged: 2019-06-10 07:41:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15286917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queen_scribbles/pseuds/queen_scribbles
Summary: Second fill for @pillarspromptsweekly 45: Bit Parts. This one’s Two-tone Weaxel and Co. from the Something Secret quest, because I got curious about how they wound up needing to combine parties.





	Gather Your Party

**Author's Note:**

> Second fill for @pillarspromptsweekly 45: Bit Parts. This one’s Two-tone Weaxel and Co. from the Something Secret quest, because I got curious about how they wound up needing to combine parties.

 

Two hours in and they’d already lost the damn trail.

 _This some kind of omen?_ Weaxel thought sarcastically as he watched Key and Bron scour the forest floor for some sign of where they were supposed to go. He wasn’t the superstitious sort, but between Bron’s crossbow breaking just as they were about to set off, his own lucky dagger going missing, and now this, he was starting to wonder.

“Gods, I know we were warned the trail was faint in places, but this is ridiculously,” Lila commented under her breath next to him. “Think we’re cursed, Weax? Or is Bron just not as good as he thinks he is?”

The towheaded dwarf looked up long enough to toss her a playful rude gesture for her teasing dig before going back to work.

“I’m hopin’ it’s neither,” Weaxel said, answering the question even though she’d been at least half joking. “Bron’s good, and that needs to stay true so we don’t run into any nasty traps.” His ears swiveled at the sound of something skittering though the trees nearby. “And I’m _really_ hoping we aren’t cursed. We ain’t done a blazing thing to earn it, and would put a serious damper on the adventurin’ business.”

“Heh. Glad you’re a glass half full type,” Lila deadpanned, playing with the talisman of Galawain that hung around her neck. “Sometimes there ain’t a reason for things, boss. Gods don’t always need to be wronged or anything to curse some poor bastard.”

“And sometimes a string of unlucky breaks is just a coincidence,” Weaxel countered. “Though I will admit this one’s startin’ to push things.”

Even as the words left his lips, Key whistled and motioned them to her. “I think I found our trail!”

Sure enough, buried under under a large tree felled by a recent storm, rested the next trail marker they were looking for. Thus invigorated, the four of them pressed on, hoping the rest of this would be smooth sailing.

************

It only got worse. Turned out another adventuring company had seen the same posting, and when they crossed paths at the mouth of the ruin, it very nearly came to blows. The only reason it didn’t was Lila pointing out there were two corridors into the ruins and suggesting each group take one. “You can even pick first,” she said.

“Thank ye, we will,” the other leader grunted, shoving his pistol back in his belt. They picked the passage Weaxel had been planning to avoid anyway, but it turned not to make any difference. Both routes were deathtraps. Between Key and Bron they were able to avoid or disarm most of the obstacles, and they were all quiet enough to sneak past any beasts inhabiting the tunnels. They had almost made it to what Weaxel hoped was the heart of the place when their bad luck struck again.

Bron’s hand slipped while disarming a trap and he set it off instead. The resulting  lance of sun-bright light grazed Key and hit him dead on. When Weaxel blinked the spots out of his eyes, Bron was dead and Key was clutching her side, teeth grit against the pain.

“Blazing beasts take this place!” he snarled, and kicked the wall. “We should just leave now, ‘fore anything worse happens.”

“Thought you weren’t superstitious,” Lila commented as she knelt to look at Key’s side.

“I’m not, but whatever’s in there can’t possible be worth dying for,” he said irritably. “I’d rather back out now, while we can, and try for somethin’ else than run into something worse and suffer another loss.” 

“You know he’d call you chicken for that,” Key tossed back, grimacing slightly as Lila bandaged up her injured side.

“Probably,” Weaxel conceded. “Doesn’t make me any less right.”

“Oh, come on, Weax,” Lila said as she straightened. “Aren’t you the least bit curious what’s worth hiding behind so many blazing traps?”

“A little. But are _you_ curious enough to gamble your life? Especially considering we no longer have our trap expert?” He gestured at Bron’s body. “Key’s good, but he was better. We miss somethin’, maybe you’re the one who goes flyin’ back to the Wheel.”

Lila considered for a minute before nodding. “I’ll take that gamble. I’d make a lousy follower of Galawain if I gave up seeking answers and knowledge because it got a little risky.”

“Fine,” Weaxel sighed. He doubted the wisdom of pressing on, but maybe the worst was behind them. “Key?”

“I’m with Lila,” she said. “Long as we go slow it should be alright.”

Overruled two to one--even if he was technically the leader--Weaxel shrugged.  “Alright, then.” His gut said they had a point. The death of a friend was a high price to pay, but if they turned back now, they’d have paid it for nothing. Or worse, for someone else to walk away with the spoils, depending on how the other team fared. And they’d traveled far enough into the ruin that hopefully it wasn’t too much of a gamble to say the worst was behind them.

So they pressed on. Slowly--gingerly, in Key’s case--making their way through the crumbling halls. The gamble paid off, and the trio eventually found themselves standing before a door that unmistakably led to a main sanctum of some kind. It was elaborately carved, the handles made of some metal that shone even through a patina of grime. Weaxel wasn’t familiar with the figures depicted in the carvings, but then, he’d never been particularly devout. Lila didn’t seem recognize any of them either, however, which was a surprise. There was no sign of the other adventurers. Weaxel wondered briefly if they were just making slower progress or if they’d met some unsavory end like Bron.

“There’s no traps,” Key said with a frown, still staring at the door.

“What?” Weaxel turned his attention back to the matter at hand. “You sure?”

“Positive,” she nodded. “There’s no traps, not even a _lock_ , Weaxel. This doesn’t make any sense.”

It really didn’t, not with everything it had taken to get this far. Who snarled up every step of the journey except the last, most important one? “Sure this is where we’re supposed to go?”

Another nod. “Nothin’ to do but see what’s inside, I guess.”

All three of them tensed warily as they swung the doors open, but nothing happened. No gout of fire or burst of toxins, no beasts lying in wait for the foolish. Just a large open space and short flight of stairs to a dais with a pedestal across the room. They were still wary as they crossed the room, as they mounted the dais, as Key inspected the pedestal and the chest atop it for any sign of traps. She found nothing, and then delicately picked the ancient, rusty lock.

It proved a waste of effort, as the wood around the hinges had rotted and the whole lid fell off in her hand when she opened it. “Oops. Hope whoever posted that bounty only wanted the contents.”

“They did,” Weaxel assured her as he peered at said contents: a peridot almost the size of his hand, intricately carved in a style that matched the door. He carefully hefted the jewel, turned it over to ensure it was in good condition, and carefully secured it in a leather pouch before stowing it inside his armor.

There was the ominous _clack_ of a pistol hammer being drawn back. “I’ll take that.”

Weaxel spun to face the voice and found the other group’s leader, face bloody and armor singed, raising his pistol to aim at the three of them. He crossed his arms. “Why? We worked just as hard for it. Why should we just give it to you for nothing?”

“Your lives ain’t _nothin’_ , you little catfucker,” the man growled, his free hand drifting toward the second pistol in his belt. “I lost my whole blazin’ team looking for that damn gem, and by Magran’s fires, I’m not leavin’ without it.” He leveled the pistol at Key, likely taking the bandages around her middle as proof she’d be the easiest target. “It’s your choice how many of you walk out of here.”

Lila snorted a rush of air out her nose, gave her talisman an almost vicious squeeze, and threw herself at him with a wild yell. “ _Run!!_ ”

Weaxel didn’t pause to argue, even as he watched her shoulder snap back with a spray of blood at the man’s first shot. He just grabbed Key’s arm and ran. Both of them flinched at the sharp report of another pistol shot, but it hadn’t been aimed at them. They didn’t stop running until they reached the entrance of the ruin, and then just to conceal themselves in the underbrush.

Weaxel flicked Key a worried look at her heavy, pained breathing, but she shook her head in assurance she’d be fine. They waited in their hiding place for three hours, until the sky started to darken, on the slim gamble Lila would emerge from the ruin.

She didn’t, but neither did the other adventurer. Apparently _her_ last gamble had paid off.

Finally giving up the last threads of hope, Weaxel and Key carefully, cautiously, moved a short way further from from the entrance before making camp for the night. Drained in more ways than one, they were both quiet as they ate dinner. Key must have been hurting because she barely protested when Weaxel insisted on taking first watch so she could get some rest.

Both were fervently grateful when the night passed without incident.

************ 

In perhaps the biggest _Fuck you_ the universe had given them yet, the “interested party” for whom they’d retrieved the gem--a hooded figure Hel-bent on being mysterious--paid them all of fifteen hundred pands. While not the shabbiest price for a single gem, and a peridot at that, it hardly seemed worth everything it had cost them.

“I’d rather have Lila and Bron,” Key muttered, shaking the coin purse as they made their way to the Goose & Fox.

“Me, too,” Weaxel acknowledged, dodging a pair of folk and ignoring the dirty looks they tossed his way. “What say we get rip-roaring drunk in their honor and from here out only take jobs from more reputable sources?”

Key smiled for the first time that day. “Sounds good.”

They’d only just started in on their first round when the grinning--surprisingly sociable--man at the next table over nodded a greeting. “You look like you’ve had a run of shit luck, friends.”

“Because we have,” Weaxel said frankly. “Lost a couple friends on our last job and got shafted on the reward to boot.”

“That is shit luck,” chipped in the pale-haired woman sitting next to the man.  “Our sympathies.”

“We lost our leader ourselves,” the man continued conversationally. “Name’s Daedon, by the way. This is Ilfa” --a nod to the woman-- “and Hurdy”--a nod to the towering aumaua on his other side. “We been together awhile.”

“Weaxel and Key, and same,” Weaxel said, getting a good grip on his tankard.  “Share a toast to the fallen?”

“Aye,” Deadon nodded approvingly, as he and his friends raised their cups.

One toast led to a second, then a third, and before they knew it they were five rounds in, swapping stories about the newly departed as if they’d all known each other for years. None of them later remembered who first suggested joining forces, but the plan was quickly--rousingly--agreed upon.

“You alright bein’ led by an orlan?” Weaxel asked, eyeing Daedon over the edge of tankard number six.

Daedon grinned broadly, drink sloshing as he set it on the table. “No change for us. Our former leader--Berath guard him--was orlan. Long as you’re fair and let us have fun, makes no never mind to us.”

More than a little surprised at how _easy_ that had been--the alcohol probably helped--Weaxel shrugged and held out a hand to shake. “Partners, then.”

“Partners,” Daedon agreed emphatically as he shook the offered hand.

They went back to drinking. Tomorrow they’d sober up and go to Admeth’s Den, see if the Dozens had work for another adventuring party, Weaxel reflected, but for now they could just celebrate the forging of a new partnership. He had a good feeling about this gamble.


End file.
